


Speakeasies and Matchsticks

by orphan_account



Category: Funhaus, Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prohibition Era, Crewhaus, M/M, Noire!AU, Trans!Adam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3874678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As much as Adam resists thinking about the family he left behind, he absolutely refuses to think about his old name, his old face. Those went up in a ball of fire and smoke and gunshots along with that fateful speakeasy, but that comes later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speakeasies and Matchsticks

Adam was raised as a polite young lady of the town. He had a very limited social circle as his interactions were controlled by the house matriarch, his grandmother, who suspected him of being a ‘tomboy’. It wasn’t that Adam felt like he was in the wrong body or any of that tripe. His parents were lovely and so was his life but he didn’t feel lovely. 

As much as Adam resists thinking about the family he left behind, he absolutely refuses to think about his old name, his old face. Those went up in a ball of fire and smoke and gunshots along with that fateful speakeasy, but that comes later.

…  
The Dude Soup gang was both his out from his old life and the in to his new.

Adam would have been the lady of the town, look at that grin and tell me everyone wouldn't have been instantly starry eyed. He easily charmed his way into all of the illicit, underground drinking spots around the city. That’s how he met the gang. They were a fledgling crew, just getting their footing in the underground trades of the city, well known for constantly doing really dumb shit.

Their propensity towards said dumb shit was what was leaving them high and dry. They were still considered newbies, despite being a strong crew, because they would do things that would lose them half their profit after a heist or accidentally alert the coppers to their position. Notable examples included James setting off an explosive device as a distraction which managed to instead evaporate half the bags of money they had ready to go, and Joel doing something that included glitter that ended up attracting half the gangs and the entire police force of the city to him. There was glitter in his hair for weeks.

Adam would put on a disguise every time he went out to the underground club known colloquially as The Bowl. The disguise was legitimately just a suit and a wrapped up chest, vest baggy enough to hide any softness. He'd stuff his long, ladylike hair up into one of those newsboy caps. Because his disguise relied solely on baggy clothing and hiding his face he always looked really rumpled. It was honestly a wonder to him that he ever managed to get into The Bowl. Little did he know that the only reason he could consistently enter The Bowl was because the manager Joel Rubin told the bouncer to always let "that scruffy kid" in. Joel knew what he was seeing in the too-large clothing and the too-long hair and sure as hell 'gay man extraordinaire' Joel Rubin wasn't going to let this kid down. Well certainly not when Adam kept coming night after night, after curfew, to buy drinks and skulk around the bar. Adam might have been underage but Joel and his boys weren’t very legal people anyway, especially not when Adam was a bit too loose with the green in his pockets.

Adam slowly but surely struck up an unlikely friendship with the bartender, a man with the brightest blue eyes he'd ever seen. He slowly learnt the names of the in-house bouncer, Lawrence, the front door distraction, Bruce, and eye-candy Spoole. Well, he really met Spoole through Spoole's job at the bar, pickpocketing those men drunk enough not to notice that the pretty boy in their laps is grabbing something in their pocket that is not what they want him there for. Spoole tried the same routine of Adam, fluttering eyes, calls for drinks, snuggling on chairs but then encounters 1. a distinct lack of wallet and 2. a distinct lack of penis. Adam was so embarrassed and scared by the encounter that he immediately tried to flee The Bowl, only to be stopped by Spoole. A hushed conversation in the corner, that Lawrence couldn't have heard if he tried, and it looked like they were soon fast friends.

Spoole was there when Adam learnt James' name. In fact he told Adam after getting tired of Adam making moon eyes at James every time he thought he wasn't looking.

Lawrence and Bruce were there after Adam got "roughed up" outside the club. He said roughed up but his sharp gasps of pain as they applied ice to his quickly bruising eye said otherwise. They kept a better eye on him after that.

Adam never met, or had even really heard of, the mysterious Joel and Peake until the fateful night that The Bowl was burnt down.

They still don't know whether it was the police or another gang that burst through the doors that night, holding a bloody Bruce by the scruff of his neck, the cold barrel of a gun digging into his temple. Gunshots quickly rang out and for all their bumbling appearances, the Dude Soup gang were a well-oiled machine together. The only cog they hadn't accounted for was scruffy, petrified Adam.  
Bruce had broken out from whoever it was that had a hold on him, fighting his way out of the encroaching scrum. The assailants quickly grabbed the nearest victim, poor Adam sitting at the bar. James was quick on the uptake and smashed a large port bottle over the assailants head, knocking them out. James was fast, but not quite fast enough and as the big lug went down Adam could see the flash of recognition in his eyes as they swept over Adams face, framed by the long hair that billowed out from under his cap.

Lawrence yelled something into the back, yanked Spoole from the lap of the old man he was in the middle of fucking robbing fucking thanks Lawrence oh those guys have guns, and started for the inner offices. James grabbed Adam by his collar and yanked him over the bar counter, Adam’s still gangly limbs sweeping bottles of the counter. As the glass smashed and alcohol sprayed everywhere Adam tries to say something, an apology or a cry for help, and James just eyed him and said, “Don’t worry. It’ll help the fire later.”

The utter bizarreness of the statement was enough to shut Adam up as he ran with James through a hidden door. They met up with Joel and Peake who were frantically opening their secret exit away from this warren of a bar. Adam was shit scared, still a dainty upper class lady at heart, and was pretty much just whimpering from where James had bundled him against his chest.

Eventually Peake got the door open and they ran through, Joel waiting until everyone has gone through before him to throw a match into the office which quickly alights from all the alcohol thrown around before.  
They're scampering through dark underground sewers and long, narrow alleyways until they're out of the city boundaries. Out, off in the middle of town, they can see The Bowl, a rising flume of fire and smoke.

At this point Adam, as much as he wants to go back home to his dainty house with his dainty life, is stuck with these guys. Whoever it was that broke into the hideout, be it police or another gang, definitely knew his face now.

And so Adam, clutched in James' arms, is stuffed into the back seat of a hidden, safe getaway car as they drive away from his town, The Bowl a burning, fading light in the distance.

Adam grows with the gang and they grow with him. They were a young group, literally and mentally, and although maybe not by the second time a hideout gets burnt down, but definitely by the fifth or sixth trip away from a flaming wreck, they are a family. The become parts of splintering factions time and time again, they fight, they win, they lose, but no-one ever calls Adam anything but “sir” and he can call the gang “his boys” and Adam is happy amidst all the fire and flame.


End file.
